Dany Robin

This pert, petite, delicate, dreamy-eyed French dish of post-war filming with the piled-high blonde hairdo was a one-time threat to the sexy, kittenish pedestal Brigitte Bardot stood on during the 1950s. While working for such legendary directors as Marcel Carné, Marc Allégret, link=nm0245213], Henri Decoin and René Clair, she also got to work opposite France's most handsome leading men, including Georges Marchal, Jean Marais, Jean Servais, François Périer, Daniel Gélin, Jacques Sernas and singer Marcel Amont, Dany became the epitome of the romantic, virginal heroine in light comedy souffles, although she was just as entrancing and touching in dramatic works. Born Danielle Robin on April 4, 1927, the lithe Dany trained as a ballerina as a child and eventually made her way dancing with the Opera de Paris. At age 19, however, she opted for a movie career and decided to study at the Paris Conservatoire. Making her screen debut with a bit part in Lunegarde (1946), she first turned heads in the romantic dramedy Le silence est d'or (1947) directed by Clair and starring Maurice Chevalier. Dany continued to touch pulses with her naïve lovelies throughout the 50's with such pictures as Naughty Martine (1947); Monelle (1948); four films co-starring heartthrob Georges Marchal, whom she married in 1951 -- La passagère (1949), The Unexpected Voyager (1950), La soif des hommes (1950) and Valley of Fire (1951); She and Me (1952); Two Pennies Worth of Violets (1951); Frou-Frou (1955); the title role in the films Holiday for Henrietta (1952) and Julietta (1953); the US/French co-production Act of Love (1953) starring Kirk Douglas; Napoleon (1955) (as Desiree); Frou-Frou (1955); Maid in Paris (1956); It Happened in Aden (1956); Good Evening Paris (1956); It's Adam's Fault (1958); School for Coquettes (1958); the title role in Mimi Pinson (1958); and The Chasers (1959). Though most of her films were produced in her own homeland, Dany branched out internationally from time to time in the 1960's, appearing in the British sex comedy Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) opposite Peter Sellers and the innocuous, teen-oriented flick Follow the Boys (1963) starring singing teen pop idol Connie Francis here in the U.S. She matured with roles in Love and the Frenchwoman (1960), Les mystères de Paris (1962), Mandrin (1962), X-Ray of a Killer (1965) and a pair of British comedies Don't Lose Your Head (1967) and The Best House in London (1969). She would last appear on film in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Topaz (1969), an American production. Divorced from first husband Marchal, the father of her two children, in 1968, Dany married British agent/producer Michael Sullivan the following year and retired quietly. On May 25, 1995, the 68-year-old former actress was tragically killed, along with Sullivan, in a fire that consumed their Paris apartment.